Letter to The Times: Sharia Contradicts Islam’s Sacred Text
TIMES ONLINE: We must combat the crusade to legitimise Sharia law within the UK

Sir, Most thinking British Muslims vehemently reject this new “shariafication” fad in Britain (“Hardline Islamic penal sanctions”, letters, July 22). The claim that many non-Muslims are seeking redress in Sharia courts needs to be verified by an independent audit, not by some self-serving Muslim organisation that is itself a principal instigator of this unfortunate trend in British Islam (reports, July 21).

This co-ordinated campaign by pro-Saudi traditionalists to enforce medieval Muslim jurisprudence by stealth and by increments has to be resisted. The pretext of promoting a benign and benevolent juristic code is far from the truth. In reality, this corrosive Wahhabi and Salafi drive to (initially) implement selective aspects of an anachronistic legal system is nothing but the thin edge of the wedge, a Trojan horse for the later adoption and/or grafting of Islamic law on to British jurisprudence.

The Sharia as practised in the Muslim world today is notoriously inconsistent and anachronistic. Nowhere is there any uniformity about these medieval juristic rulings. But most damning is that Sharia often flagrantly violates the transcendent Koran, particularly when it relates to women’s rights, criminal punishments, interfaith relations, violence, ideological tolerance and religious freedom. Even under the guise of establishing personal and family law for Muslims in the UK, the British-based Sharia propagandists cannot explain away the inherent inequity that Muslim women face under these archaic masculine-promulgated edicts in terms of marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance rights and female attire. While the Koran encourages a gender equal society, the Saudi and Pakistani-influenced mullahs in this country unashamedly defend the tribal sexism of 7th-century Arabia.

Under this antiquated legal system, men have untrammelled rights to instant divorce and are entitled to the virtual automatic custody of their offspring, but there are no similar prerogatives for women. This is just one of innumerable cases where the exclusively male-written Sharia not only blatantly contradicts Islam’s sacred text but also is opposed to the concepts of natural justice that are so intrinsic to British law.

On these grounds alone, every effort must be made, by Muslims as well as other right-minded people, to combat this current crusade to legitimise this outmoded and anti-Koranic cultural-legal system within the UK. Since British Muslims are fully protected under UK law and free to practise the fundamentals of their faith, there is no valid reason why they should support this noxious “shariafication” of the UK.

Dr T. Hargey

Chairman, Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford [Source: Times Online] | Friday, July 24, 2009

Sarkozy Told to Prune Cost of Carla’s Flowers
THE SUNDAY TIMES: PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy has been told to trim his flower bill after the first inspection of a French ruler’s expenses revealed that his palace spent £600 a day on bouquets.

Sarkozy ordered the opening of the Elysée Palace accounts as part of the “transparency” he advocates in government. It may have backfired on him by revealing a colossal waste of public money at a time when others are tightening their belts.

The exorbitant florist’s bill can be attributed to Carla Bruni, the president’s wife, a folk singer and former top model who has a passion for freshly cut flowers. Bernadette Chirac, her predecessor, had a similar obsession – particularly for roses – but saved money by growing them in the palace grounds.

Philippe Séguin, the state auditor, recommended cutting food costs as well as the floral bill: the palace always went to the same suppliers, he complained, even if it meant paying twice as much – £170,000 a year at the butcher, £217,000 at the greengrocer and just over £100,000 in cheese shops. >>> Matthew Campbell | Sunday, July 26, 2009

Barack Obama's Health Reform Plans Are a Bitter Pill for His Personal Doctor
THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama's personal doctor for more than two decades is bitterly disappointed by the health care reforms being pushed through Congress at the urging of his former patient.

Dr David Scheiner remains a big fan of the man he treated for 22 years in Chicago. But does not believe the planned overhaul goes far enough to help the poor and uninsured, and will cost too much because of pressure from the health care industry.

The 71-year-old physician, who has treated low income patients for his entire career in the city's Hyde Park neighbourhood, believes Mr Obama favours an NHS-style "single payer" system, but backed away under pressure from the health industry.

"He's a pragmatist, he wants to get something done" Dr Scheiner told The Sunday Telegraph. "But this time he should have pushed back hard against the health care lobby."

He is bitterly disappointed in the way the reforms are being organised and says he was bounced from the invitation list to a White House event because of pressure from the health lobby.

"I was all set to go to an event, I got an email from the White House the Sunday before and then suddenly I was told 'there were too many people' coming," he said. "I think they knew I was going to ask an awkward question about the single payer option."

He contends that the reforms winding their way though Congress "could bankrupt us because there are no real cost controls and the big beneficiaries will be private hospitals and insurance companies". >>> Leonard Doyle in Washington | Saturday, July 25, 2009

Anglican Church Has Lost the Plot
THE TELEGRAPH: Churches should try harder to make bald and overweight people feel welcome, according to new guidance that is being issued to clergy.

A Church of England book published this week says they should be regarded as worshippers with "special needs" alongside the blind, the deaf, breast-feeding mothers, very short people and readers of tabloid newspapers.

The advice is part of an initiative launched this week to make churches more friendly and less intimidating to newcomers in an attempt to increase attendance at services.

Among those considered to warrant particular attention are people who are blind, deaf or in wheelchairs.

However, it also warns that bald people could be "in trouble from those overhead radiant heaters some churches have unwittingly installed" and that special arrangements may need to be made for people who are overweight.

"Some pew spaces and chairs are embarrassingly inadequate for what is known in church circles as 'the wider community'," the book says.

Consideration should be given to recovering alcoholics who want to receive communion wine, it suggests, and for those who "find loud noises from organs or music groups distressing".

The book, called Everybody Welcome, claims that only one in ten church visitors return because existing worshippers tend to be so unwelcoming.

It urges churches to become more professional in their attitude to attracting newcomers and suggests they follow the example of department stores in appointing customer-care managers. Church tells worshippers to give special treatment to overweight or bald people >>> Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | Saturday, July 25, 2009

Saturday Night Entertainment – Phil Collins: Another Day in Paradise

Saturday Night Entertainment – Celine Dion: My Heart Will Go On

Obama’s Beer Fails to Cool Fiery Race Row
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The president’s reaction to the arrest of a black scholar has dented his reputation and distracted Obama during a tough week

THEY are calling it bar-stool diplomacy – a novel attempt by President Barack Obama to cool a heated racial controversy by inviting the offended parties to settle their differences over a beer at the White House.

Yet the president’s efforts to limit the fallout from a row over the arrest last week of Henry Louis Gates Jr, a black Harvard professor, may serve to extend a furore that has shaken the White House and raised questions about Obama’s vaunted leadership skills.

The row showed no sign of diminishing yesterday as Massachusetts media pressed for the release of police tapes that could shed new light on the angry exchanges between Gates and Sergeant James Crowley, a white officer who arrived at the professor’s Cambridge home to investigate a report of a break-in.

The incident led to a rare breakdown of Obama’s previously impressive political judgment. Having spent much of the past two years steering clear of racial controversy and nurturing an image of so-called “postracial” conciliation, the president plunged unexpectedly into the Gates affair.

He declared on Wednesday, when it was still far from clear what had happened, that the Massachusetts police had “acted stupidly” by arresting Gates, whom Obama described as a personal friend.

By Friday evening, Obama was back-pedalling furiously and his invitation to Gates and Crowley to join him for a beer was interpreted as an acknowledgment by the president that he had spoken too hastily in “maligning” the police. “I could have calibrated those words differently,” he said. >>> Tony Allen-Mills in Washington | Sunday, July 26, 2009

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Israel Uses Hitler Picture to Sell Its Settlement Expansion
THE INDEPENDENT: Foreign minister orders diplomats to circulate photo ahead of discussions with President Obama's envoy

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, has triggered fresh controversy by urging diplomats abroad to use a 1941 photograph of a Palestinian religious leader meeting Hitler to counter protests against a planned Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem.

The hard right Mr Lieberman ordered the circulation to Israeli embassies of copies of the notorious wartime photograph of Hitler meeting the then Mufti of Jerusalem, an overt sympathiser with the Nazis who helped them raise an SS division in Bosnia. The move has alarmed some experienced Israeli diplomats who believe it will be counterproductive. It came after the US State Department expressed its disapproval to Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, over plans to build at least 20 apartments for Jewish settlers at the site of the old Shepherd's Hotel building in the inner East Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah.

The building was once used as a headquarters of the Mufti, a member of the one of the most prominent Palestinian families in Jerusalem. The Palestinian nationalist Faisal al-Husseini, grand nephew of the Mufti, was a frequent interlocutor and strong advocate of peace moves with Israel in his later years until his death in 2001.

The plans for the Shepherd's Hotel site have highlighted a continuing rift between much of the international community and Israel over the latter's continued settlement building in East Jerusalem. The site was bought in the 1980s by a company controlled by Irving Moskowitz, a major benefactor of of right wing settler groups.

While the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is deep in negotiations with US officials over the settlement freeze in the West Bank being demanded by President Obama, he made it clear this week he will not be deterred from sanctioning continued building for Jews in East Jerusalem. Israel's sovereignty over the whole of the city "cannot be challenged", he said. >>> Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem | Saturday, July 25, 2009

Grand Mufti Amin Al Husseini of Jerusalem

Hitler, der Großmufti und Islamo-Nazismus

Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem

'Record Rise' in UK Anti-Semitism
BBC: Anti-Semitic attacks in the UK doubled in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2008, according to new figures.

The Jewish Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism, says it recorded 609 incidents between January and June - up from 276 last year.

Most incidents were abusive behaviour, but there were also 77 violent acts.

The trust said the rise had been driven by anger over Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

That conflict, between December 2008 and January 2009, was followed by an almost immediate rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK.

According to the CST, the total number of incidents for the first six months of this year was worse than the previous record of 598 incidents for the whole of 2006.

Some 286 incidents occurred in January alone - but the security body said that a disproportionately higher monthly number of attacks and abuse continued into the spring.

The attacks recorded so far include 77 acts of physical violence and two life-threatening assaults, one of which was an attempt to run somebody over with a car. >>> Dominic Casciani | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Cambridge Police Demand Apology from Barack Obama Over 'Stupid' Comments
THE TELEGRAPH: American police unions have demanded an apology from Barack Obama after he accused an officer of "acting stupidly" by arresting leading black scholar, Prof Henry Louis Gates.

Police representatives queued up at a press conference to insist race had played no part in the incident and the president should retract his "disgraceful" comments and apologise to Sgt James Crowley.

However Mr Obama refused to apologise at a hastily arranged White House press conference where he said: "In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically."

"My words didn't illuminate they only added to the media attention," he added.

He also revealed that he had telephoned Sgt Crowley.

Mr Obama criticised police earlier this week after the incident involving Prof Henry Louis Gates who was arrested after trying to force a jammed front door at his home near Harvard University. >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Friday, July 24, 2009

Iran's Supreme Leader Orders Sacking of Vice-President
THE TELEGRAPH: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caved into pressure from hardline clerics and the country's supreme leader Friday and allowed the resignation of his top deputy after a week-long standoff.

For days, the president had resisted pressure from hardliners, including a direct order from the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to dismiss his choice for the key post of first vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who last year angered conservatives when he made friendly comments toward Israel.

The final blow, however, appeared to be the public reading on state television of the order issued earlier by Khamenei to dismiss Mashai because he is "contrary to the interest of you and the government".

The issue created a rare rift between Ahmadinejad and the hardliners that form the bedrock of his support and comes at a particular [sic] sensitive time as he is battling opposition reformists who accuse him of winning the June 12 presidential elections through fraud.

"After the announcement of the exalted supreme leader's order, Mashai doesn't consider himself first vice president," IRNA quoted presidential aide Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi as saying late Friday.

The resignation capped a day of renewed pressure that featured conservative student street demonstrations and Friday sermons railing against Mashai's appointment. >>> | Friday, July 24, 2009

De Phazz - Jazz Music

Muslims Could Get Own Police
DAILY EXPRESS: MUSLIM crime victims could gain the right to have their cases overseen by police from their own religion, it emerged last night.

Police in London already give victims the right to ask for a Sikh officer to be involved in an investigation but the scheme could be introduced for other religions elsewhere.

Chief Supt Joanna Young, from the Met’s Criminal Justice Policy Unit, said: “If it’s a success, I would encourage the other (police) associations to do likewise.”

The project is intended to help investigate “honour” killings and forced marriages but Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Peter Smyth said: “We’re stretched thin enough already. Are Sikh officers going to have their rotas changed so there’s always one on duty?

“It’s political correctness gone mad. We talking about the creation of a separate force within a force.”

But Palbinder Singh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Sikh Association, said: “I don’t believe a white officer is ever going to be fully conversant with a Sikh.” [Source: Daily Express] | Katherine Fenech | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Riz Khan – One On One: Muna Abu Sulayman


Muna Abu Sulayman >>>

Chine: Shanghaï encourage la conception du second enfant
L’EXPRESS.fr: Quarante ans après l'entrée en vigueur de la politique de l'enfant unique en Chine, la ville de Shanghaï, inquiète du vieillissement de sa population, va activement encourager certains couples à avoir un second enfant.

L'empiètement de la politique dans la sphère privée, en ce qui concerne le nombre de naissances, est une tradition en Chine. Dans les années 1950, l'heure était à la forte natalité, l'idée étant que "plus la population est nombreuse, plus l'enthousiasme et l'énergie sont grandes", selon les termes de Mao Zedong.

Dans les années 1960, le Parti communiste chinois se rend compte des effets néfastes d'une trop forte natalité et présente la limitation des naissances, non seulement comme un bien pour l'individu, mais aussi comme un service rendu à la société. Un Bureau du Planning familial est instauré, des campagnes de limitation des naissances sont lancées, l'avortement et le stérilet sont davantage accessibles et l'âge du mariage repoussé...Les mesures sont nombreuses et le non-respect aux lois sévèrement puni.

En 1979, le contrôle de limitation des naissances devient plus sévère avec la politique de l'enfant unique: c'est la politique du wan-xi-shao (littéralement "mariage tardif, naissances peu rapprochées et peu nombreuses"). Outre l'indignation suscitée par les méthodes coercitives employées-telles que les avortements forcés- les motivations de cette politique très efficace ("400 millions de naissances ont été évitées", estimait Zhang Weiquing, ministre chargé du planning familial en 2006 à Pékin) restent très discutées: crainte de la surpopulation, volonté d'améliorer le niveau de vie des habitants ou de consacrer les ressources du pays à l'investissement économique. >>> Par Sandra Falque | Vendredi 24 Juillet 2009

Aung San Suu Kyi 'Fears Worst' as Trial Nears an End
TIMES ONLINE: Burma’s democracy leader is “preparing for the worst” as her two and a half month trial for giving shelter to an eccentric American well wisher nears its conclusion, one of her lawyers said today.

Aung San Suu Kyi's defence team summed up their case in the court in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison where she is on trial for allegedly breaching the terms of her detention under house arrest. Also on trial is John Yettaw, a US citizen who swam uninvited to her lakeside house because he had dreamed of her assassination and wanted to warn her of impending danger.

Her two house companions are also charged, and defence arguments for them and for Mr Yettaw will continue on Monday. Foreign diplomats from European embassies in Rangoon were allowed into court for the first time in several weeks, but her lawyer, Nyan Win, suggested that Ms Suu Kyi held out little hope of avoiding conviction, which could bring a sentence of five years and exclusion from the elections which the unelected junta promises to hold next year.

“As for her, she is preparing for the worst,” he told Reuters after the hearing. >>> Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor | Friday, July 24, 2009

Remembering Poor Neda: ‘United for Neda’

Muslim Woman 'Told to Take Off Veil' by Bus Driver in Australia
THE TELEGRAPH: A Muslim woman has accused a Sydney bus driver of racism after he told her to take off her headscarf because it was against the law to wear it on board.

Khadijah Ouararhni-Grech was wearing a pink, floral niqab, which covers her hair and lower face, when she tried to board a bus in Greystanes, an outer suburb of the Astralian [sic] city.

"As I was stepping onto the bus the driver said 'You can't get on the bus wearing your mask'," she told the Sydney Daily Telegraph newspaper.

When she explained it was religious dress, the woman said the driver responded: "Sorry, it's the law."

"I told him it wasn't the law and he said 'You have to show me your face,'" she said.

"I said to him, 'There's no difference between me and that lady sitting there who chooses to not wear what I'm wearing'." >>> Bonnie Malkin in Sydney | Friday, July 24, 2009

200 Islamisten in der Türkei festgenommen: Zeitgleiche Razzien in 23 Städten
NZZ Online: Die türkische Polizei hat zeitgleich in 23 Städten Razzien veranstaltet. Dabei wurden knapp 200 radikale Islamisten festgenommen.

Bei einer landesweiten Razzia hat die türkische Polizei knapp 200 radikale Islamisten festgenommen. Die von der Anti-Terror-Einheit in Ankara koordinierten Razzien fanden am Freitagmorgen zeitgleich in 23 Städten statt, wie die Nachrichtenagentur Anadolu meldete.

Bei den Festgenommenen handle es sich um mutmassliche Mitglieder der Organisation Hizb-ut-Tahrir, die für einen länderübergreifenden islamischen Staat und die Einführung der Scharia eintritt. Bei den Razzien seien Dokumente dieser Organisation sichergestellt worden. >>> sda/afp | Freitag, 24. Juli 2009

Gays in the Military

Blunt Warning about Greens Under the Bed
TIMES ONLINE: Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today’s environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous

Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt’s memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.

Blunt talks of “the religious quality” of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today’s developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.

His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today’s college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar.

Both identify an end utopia that is difficult to dispute. The diktat “from each according to his ability, to each according to his means” sounds lovely on paper. Greens promise a world in which we actually survive a coming ecological apocalypse. A desirable outcome, undoubtedly.

But the means to these ends seem similarly insurmountable. Both routes demand an immediate suspension of human nature.
Ideologies often credit man with either more nobility or more venality than he deserves. In reality he is a mundane creature. He wants a home for himself and those he loves, stocked with food. And he wants to have the right to control his own destiny, own his own stuff, and to acquire more if he can without interference or fear of imminent death. Such low-level acquisitive desires support high concepts: property rights and the rule of law, without which there would be no foundation for democracy. >>> Antonia Senior | Friday, July 24, 2009

Muslim Woman in Fear after Friend 'Loses Tongue in Acid Honour Attack'
TIMES ONLINE: Two men have appeared in court after the suspected lover of a married Muslim woman had acid thrown in his face and was stabbed twice in the back in a possible “honour attack”.

The woman was warned that her own “wellbeing may be in danger”, a source at Scotland Yard told The Times.

Detectives have been told that the man and woman were not in a sexual relationship but were just friends. However, their relationship is said to have upset her family.

The 24-year-old Asian victim, believed to be from Denmark, is in a critical but stable condition in a specialist burns unit in Essex. He has lost part of his tongue, been left blind in one eye and has 50 per cent burns and fractures to his face after being attacked in Leytonstone, East London, on July 2. >>> Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Muslim family pours sulfuric acid down man's throat during savage beating

Saudi Women Are Virtual Prisoners in Their Own Homes

Saudi Women’s Rights

Apologistst for Evil

Wilders: Calculate Cost of Immigrants
NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL: The anti-immigration party of Dutch populist Geert Wilders wants each ministry to make a cost-benefit analysis of the presence of non-Western immigrants and their offspring in the Netherlands.

When Geert Wilders first brought up what he called "the cost of multiculturalism" in the Dutch parliament last year, he got mostly laughs. Wilders claimed non-Western immigration had already cost the Netherlands 100 billion euros and speculated about how that money could have been put to better use. Every elderly person could have had his or her own room in a nursing home, Wilders suggested; we could all have retired at 50, "or we could have given everybody in the Netherlands a free sailboat." >>> By Barbara Rijlaarsdam and Herman Staal | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Warum die Christen im Irak aussterben
WELT ONLINE: Seit mehr als 2000 Jahren leben Christen im Irak. Doch die Minderheit schrumpft. In der Region Mosul war es in den vergangenen Monaten ruhiger geworden, einige Familien kehrten zurück. Jetzt flammt die Gewalt gegen Christen dort wieder auf. Die örtlichen Würdenträger fürchten den endgültigen Exodus.

Wenn die Christen im Irak am Sonntag in Bagdad und Mosul zum Gottesdienst gehen, sehen sie verstärkte Sicherheitsmaßnahmen vor ihren Kirchen. Weiträumige Absperrungen, die keine Zufahrt mit dem Auto zulassen, schwer bewaffnete Soldaten und Polizisten. Nach den gezielten Anschlägen auf Gotteshäuser in den vergangenen Wochen hat die Regierung den Schutz für die Christen verstärkt. Sieben Kirchen wurden innerhalb von 48 Stunden angegriffen – sechs in Bagdad, eine in Mosul. Vier Menschen starben, 32 wurden verletzt.

Nach der systematischen Verfolgung in Mosul im Dezember vergangenen Jahres ist es nun das zweite Mal, dass Terroraktionen gezielt gegen christliche Einrichtungen verübt werden. Es steht zu befürchten, dass daraufhin noch mehr Angehörige dieser Religion aus Angst vor weiteren Anschläge den sonntäglichen Gottesdiensten künftig fernbleiben oder gar das Land verlassen werden. >>> Von Birgit Svensson | Donnerstag, 23. Juli 2009

No Place for Gay Discrimination in US: Obama
SX: US President Barack Obama has called for an end to discrimination, including inequality against gay people, in an address to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People last week.

In a speech mentioning the economy, health care, education and HIV/AIDS, Obama also addressed the issue of discrimination, calling for an end to prejudice against minority groups, specifically African-American women, Latinos, Muslim Americans and gays and lesbians.



“The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States,” Obama said in the address. >>> Rachel Cook | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Keep the Faith: Should Muslim Children Receive Sex Education?
THE INDEPENDENT: A group run by a member of a radical Islamic organisation is opposing plans to give five-year-olds sex education.

In an underground hall at the London Central Mosque in Regent Street, a group of parents sitting on plastic chairs is clustered around a power point. A small, neatly dressed man at the front welcomes them, introducing himself as Yusuf Patel. "As Muslims we believe in values," he says, "We believe in haraam and halal, but sex and relationship education (SRE) teaching in this country does not provide this. It is the responsibility of parents to see their children educated, but not at the expense of these values."

Patel's organisation, SREIslamic, was established eight months ago to encourage Muslims to respond to the Government's consultation about whether to make SRE compulsory and extend it to five-year-olds. Since then, the organisation claims, it has held 40 workshops across the country and collected tens of thousands of signatures from Muslims opposed to the measures.

But Patel is not only a concerned parent and campaigner. According to his website, he is also a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist organisation that Tony Blair considered banning in 2005. Patel's brother, Jalaluddin, is the former UK head of the political party, which is barred in countries including Germany, Russia and Egypt. Should we be concerned that, like other far-right or religious groups in Britain, SREIslamic might be using a sensitive community grievance to pursue a wider political agenda?

Although Hizb ut-Tahrir says it does not advocate violence, it is opposed to Western-style democracy and believes in establishing a global caliphate under sharia law. There is no evidence of its involvement in terrorism, but some of its members have defended terrorist acts abroad, most recently when a member described Pakistani militants as "brothers". >>> Lila Green | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Muslim Woman to Be Caned for Drinking a Beer
BALTIMORE SUN BLOG: A 32-year-old Muslim woman, a model, was sentenced this week to six strokes with a rattan cane for drinking a beer in a nightclub.

Word of this event, reported by the Associated Press in Australia and picked up The Huffington Post, comes from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Consuming alcohol is a religious offense in Malaysia only for Muslims, who make up nearly two-thirds of the population, reports say. Offenders are prosecuted in Shariah courts, which handle cases mainly related to family and moral issues for Muslim.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced Monday to six lashes and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for consuming alcohol.

Earlier news sources reported the woman would appeal the sentence. But yesterday the blog Nuraiana A. Samad's 3540 Jalan Sudin said the woman had decided not to appeal. There seemed to confusion, however, over who would strike the blows. Technically, she has to be in prison to be caned. She is not in prison.

The caning inflicts more shame than corporal punishment, a Malaysian official claims. Easy for him to say. [Source: Batimore Sun Blog] | Rob Kaspar | Comment here

150 Women Face Adultery Flogging on Maldives
THE INDEPENDENT: Almost 150 women living in the Maldives face a public flogging for indulging in extra-marital sex after being convicted by the Muslim country's conservative courts. Around 50 men also face the punishment.

Earlier this month, an 18-year-old woman fainted after she was flogged 100 times having been found guilty of having sex with two different men. The woman, who was pregnant at the time of sentencing, had her punishment deferred until after the birth of her child and the court said the teenager's pregnancy was proof of her guilt. In contrast, the accused men were acquitted, with one of them escaping punishment simply because he denied the charge. >>> Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent | Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Police Chiefs Press for Immigration Reform
USA TODAY: PHOENIX — Some of the nation's top cops on Wednesday called upon Congress to promptly adopt an immigration reform measure, saying local law enforcement agencies across America are struggling to deal with crime and confusion caused by a broken system.

About 100 police chiefs and administrators from Framington, Mass., to San Diego joined Department of Homeland Security officials in Phoenix for a National Summit on Local Immigration Policies sponsored by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit law enforcement educational organization.

During closed discussions, the participants agreed that America needs a comprehensive new law containing guest-worker programs, a means for immigrants to become permanent residents and federal enforcement of the prohibition against hiring illegal immigrants, according to Chuck Wexler, the forum's executive director. >>> Dennis Wagner | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sharia-intent Extremists Convene in Chicago
ONENEWSNOW: A national defense analyst and former Reagan Defense Department official says Americans need to be deeply concerned that a radical Islamic organization calling for the overthrow of Democratic America was recently able to hold a meeting just outside Chicago.

The conference called "Fall of Capitalism and Rise of Islam," which took place at a Hilton Hotel in the Windy City, was sponsored by a group known as Hizb Ut-Tahrir. The group openly declared that it seeks to bring about an Islamic America.
 


Frank Gaffney served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security during the Reagan administration and now serves as president of the Center for Security Policy. "They're talking explicitly about replacing the Constitution of the United States with a theocratic form of government under this barbaric, totalitarian program they call Sharia," he says. According to Gaffney, "sharia" requires its adherents to engage in jihad -- of either the violent kind or the "stealthy" kind, as he told Fox News recently. >>> Chad Groening | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Children to Be Baptised as Their Parents Are Married
This is absurd! Another one of the Archcrank’s ideas, I suppose! When a religion starts mirroring modern trends and keeps on trying to be ‘relevant’ to today’s world, then that ‘religion’ ceases to be a proper religion. Funny thing is that the more relevant the Church tries to be to modern life, the more irrelevant it becomes!

In any case, religions shouldn’t follow, they should be sources of inspiration, and they should lead. Any religion which follows trends is a flawed religion, and is destined to become even more irrelevant than it already is, it is destined to die out. Little wonder that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world today! That religion won't change its message. After all, people want to be told what is right in the eyes of God; they don’t want to tell Him! – ©Mark

TIMES ONLINE: The Church of England unveils a two-in-one wedding and baptism liturgy today as it seeks to make peace with families “living in sin”.

The “hatch-and-match” service allows couples to baptise their children after the wedding ceremony. Parents can even get baptised themselves.

The aim is to encourage cohabiting parents to marry as the Church tries to become more relevant to the way people live their lives, but critics said that it appeared to sanction having children out of wedlock. One bishop described the idea as “nutty”. The liturgy, costing £272, is being sent out to dioceses and parish clergy today.

The move comes after research commissioned by the archbishops of Canterbury and York found that increasing numbers of couples marrying in church already had children. The latest figures on births and marriages show that about 44 per cent of children are born to unmarried women. >>> Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sharia Law in the USA

Michael Jackson: I Just Can’t Stop Loving You

Michael Jackson: Heal the World
Watch video here >>>

France Falls Out of Love with Topless Sunbathing
THE GUARDIAN: Health concerns and new feminist priorities mean French women are covering up on the beach

Photo: The Guardian
For some it's the stuff of naff Cote d'Azur postcards. For others it's a symbol of the feminist struggle in France. Topless sunbathing was once the summer battleground of French post-1968 society – educated middle classes insisted that peeling off was a women's right, while family groups claimed exposed nipples would scare children.

For decades, France has prided itself on being the world capital of seaside semi-nudity. Now the nation is facing a bikini-top backlash. A younger generation of women are covering up, citing new feminist priorities, skin cancer fears and a rebellion against the cult of the fetished body beautiful.

French academics and historians have spent the early summer months pondering the sociological meaning of the demise of France's once-favourite piece of beachwear, the "monokini" – the bottom half of a bikini with no top.

Since the 1970s, when the French state refused to ban "le topless" on beaches, women's semi-nudity has become a symbol of summer in France. It was a point of national pride that the same freedom to strip off in public was off-limits in other more prudish nations such as the US.

Women's bodies have always been the centre of national social debates in France. Jean-Marie Le Pen's far-right Front National once produced a poster warning against immigration which showed carefree French topless sunbathers in the 1990s against a doomsday prediction of burka-clad women invading French beaches in the year 2010. >>> Angelique Chrisafis | Wedneday, July 22, 2009

Simon Highes: What a Twat*!

*Please excuse the expletive. But for this nincompoop, there is no other word that is appropriate!

Hat tip: Always On Watch >>>

Michelle’s New Image

The Woman in Red

United for Neda

German Language Adds 5,000 Words
BBC: Around 5,000 new words have been officially added to the German language - many of them from the English-speaking world.

The newcomers appear in the latest edition of the respected German dictionary, Duden.

Germans can now go to "eine After-Show-Party", as long as it is not "eine No-Go Area", and meet "das It Girl" - if she does not have "der Babyblues".

Fans of social networking can also "twittern", which means to Twitter.

The financial crisis has inspired many of the new entries in the 135,000-word dictionary.

'Kreditklemme'

Appearing for the first time are "Kreditklemme" (credit crunch), "Konjunkturpaket" (stimulus package) and "Abwrackpraemie" (car scrappage bonus).

The word "Ehrenmord" (honour killing) also makes it into the dictionary, which was published on Wednesday.

The German language is known for its extremely long compound nouns.

And the new edition includes a 23-letter example: "Vorratsdatenspeicherung", which means the saving of data relating to supplies.

The first Duden dictionary was produced in 1880 and consisted of just 27,000 words. [Source: BBC] | Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Saudi Cleric Sultan Al Dugheilbi on Corrupt Western Culture Impacting Muslim Youth

A Fan of Camel Milk Struggles to Start a Drome-dairy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: In North Carolina, Ms. Hinkle Promotes Hard-to-Get Beverage; Milking Martha

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Millie Hinkle first tasted camel milk in the United Arab Emirates about 10 years ago. She had no idea the salty drink, still warm from the camel and served in an ornate bowl with a side of walnuts, would become an obsession.

"It has taken over my life," said the 57-year-old practitioner of natural medicine as she cruised down a tree-lined road here in her white SUV emblazoned with a camel.

Ms. Hinkle has drained her savings, slashed the number of hours she spends at her day job and started a company called Camel Milk USA. Her goal is to bring the milk, reputed to have healing and aphrodisiac powers, to the U.S. where it's been hard to get mainly because camels weren't listed in rules governing the sale of milk.

In April, Ms. Hinkle won initial approval from the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, a nonprofit group, to market the milk. Now, she's awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on some final details.

But there are several humps to overcome before camel milk is widely available in the U.S. For starters, there aren't many camels here. Those that are mainly work in circuses or live in zoos.

Another challenge: Camels don't much like to be milked. Camels can be cantankerous and persuading them to give up their milk can be part chore, part art. Camel experts say the animals are often ticklish around their udders and, without proper training, might lie down in the middle of being milked.

Camel milk is a centuries-old staple for nomadic tribes across the Middle East and Africa. It is also drunk by elderly men to enhance virility; by the sick to treat a variety of ailments; and by those who believe it has magical properties. >>> Lauren Etter | Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Obama nach sechs Monaten unbeliebter als Bush
WELT ONLINE: Ein halbes Jahr nach seinem von großen Hoffnungen begleiteten Amtsantritt als US-Präsident wird Barack Obama vom Alltag eingeholt. Eine Mehrheit der Amerikaner empfindet seinen Kurs als falsch. Obamas persönliche Umfragewerte sind sogar schlechter als die von George W. Bush zur gleichen Zeit. Obama bleibt gelassen.

Ein halbes Jahr nach seinem Amtsantritt ist die Euphorie um den neuen US-Präsidenten Barack Obama verflogen. Eine Mehrheit der Amerikaner ist laut einer Umfrage der Nachrichtenagentur AP wieder der Ansicht, dass sich die USA auf einem falschen Kurs befinden. 54 Prozent der Befragten vertreten diese Meinung, gegenüber 46 Prozent vor einem Monat. Auch die allgemeine Zufriedenheit mit dem Präsidenten hat in den vergangenen Monaten abgenommen. >>> AP/fp | Mittwoch, 22. Juli 2009

Jihad in the Classroom
THE AUSTRALIAN: INDONESIA will continue to live with the threat of terror attacks unless its government cracks down on the militant Islamic schools and religious zealots who espouse worldwide jihad.

Last Friday's hotel bombings in Jakarta have focused attention yet again on a network of radical Islamic boarding schools across Indonesia that continues to espouse the cause of violent jihad and churn out eager young zealots willing to die in its name.

 Four days after the bombings, investigators have linked them to two Islamic schools that are well known to the Indonesian authorities but have neither been shut down nor had their activities or teachings curtailed.

The first of these is the now notorious Al Mukmin pesantren (boarding house) at Ngruki in Solo, Central Java, where the Marriott suicide bomber is reported to have been schooled.

The second is a smaller school at Cilacap in Central Java, where a bomb identical to the hotel bombs used in Jakarta was found in July, and which is believed to have provided shelter to suspected mastermind Noordin Top.

A Muslim leader in Jakarta yesterday identified the man who detonated a backpack and case full of explosives inside the Marriott restaurant as Nur Hasbi, who is believed to have graduated from the Ngruki school in 1995. Thus the school continues to live up to its reputation as "a crucible for the formation of cadres of mujahidin", and its mission, "to nurture zeal for jihad so that love for jihad and martyrdom grow in the soul of the mujahidin", in the words of its co-founder, Jemaah Islamiah leader, Abu Bakar Bashir.

Nur Hasbi was no doubt inspired by his reported classmate, Asmar Latin Sani, who carried out the previous attack on the Marriott in 2003, after which his severed head was found on the fifth floor of the smashed hotel.
The connection is no coincidence. >>> Sally Neighbour | Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Funding Jihad – Saudi Arabia
Watch Journeyman Pictures video here >>>

Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal

Saudi Princess on Women's Rights

Swine Flu May Force Muslims to Abandon Haj Pilgrimage to Mecca
TIMES ONLINE: The annual Haj pilgrimage to Mecca could be under threat because of swine flu.

Britain today joined a growing list of countries in the MIddle East and Africa to issue advice to Muslim pilgrims not to travel to Saudi Arabia if they are elderly, pregnant, very young or have a long-term medical condition that may leave them more vulnerable to the disease.

The advice, issued by the UK’s Association of British Hujjaj (Pilgrims), follows a recommendation by Saudi health officials that anyone travelling to Mecca or Medina should receive the seasonal flu vaccine at least two weeks before their visit.

The Saudi authorities also said that pregnant women, children, chronically ill and elderly people should skip the Haj this year.

Quarantine facilities have been set up in Saudi airports and millions of vaccine doses have been pre-ordered.

The Association of British Hujjaj said that Saudi Arabia’s warning had “sent a shock wave” through Britain’s Muslim community.

The association’s health experts warned: “British pilgrims have always been at high risk of infections due to the crowded conditions at ceremonies, accommodation sites and on public transport. Therefore pilgrims must follow the guidelines issued by the authorities and they should be vaccinated against the swine flu virus once this vaccine is available at least two weeks before their departure to perform pilgrimage.”

In a statement today the association said: “Take the swine flu threat seriously, be safe than sorry and contact your doctor before travelling.” >>> Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Death of a Princess: سوسن بدر في موت أميرة

PBS / FRONTLINE / INTRODUCTION: In the spring of 1980, America was at a dramatic crossroads in the Middle East: President Carter's attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran had just ended in failure, oil prices were rising steadily, and the U.S. economy was in shambles. At that moment, the PBS series WORLD -- the precursor to FRONTLINE® -- broadcast perhaps the most controversial film in the history of public television.

Amid a clamor of political uproar and international front-page headlines, "Death of a Princess" told the true story of a young Saudi princess and her lover who had been publicly executed for adultery. The broadcast ignited protests from both the Saudi Arabian and U.S. governments and big oil companies. >>> | April 19, 2005

Death of a Princess >>>

House of Saud >>>

Ten Saudis Seek Asylum After Princess Is Allowed to Stay
THE INDEPENDENT: Chairman of home affairs committee welcomes decision to give sanctuary to woman with illegitimate child

Ministers are considering asylum applications for 10 Saudi Arabian nationals who claim they are at risk of persecution if they are forced to return to the Middle Eastern kingdom, it emerged last night.

The new cases were made public after The Independent revealed the plight of a Saudi princess who was granted asylum in Britain after she had an illegitimate child with a British man.

The young woman, who has also been granted anonymity by the courts, won her claim for asylum after she told a court that she faced execution if her husband found out about her adultery and she was forced to return to Saudi Arabia.

Immigration and asylum experts said last night that asylum cases from women fleeing the kingdom were very rare. But Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said of the case: "This is the kind of person that our asylum laws are designed to protect. A woman and her unborn child should under no circumstances be sent back to a country where it is likely that they will be harmed. I welcome the decision made in this case."

New figures released by the Home Office also showed that a further 15 Saudis were refused asylum by the Government last year. There are no details about the sex of each of the applicants nor for the number of asylum applications received this year.
Mr Vaz called for more information to be made public about claims from Saudi Arabia. He said: "This is a country with a questionable human rights record. It is important to make clear the number of people who are fleeing similar treatment."

The princess's case is one of a small number of claims for asylum brought by citizens of Saudi Arabia which are not openly acknowledged by either government. British diplomats believe that to do so would in effect highlight the persecution of women in Saudi Arabia, which would be viewed as open criticism of the House of Saud and lead to embarrassing publicity for both governments.

The woman, who comes from a very wealthy Saudi family, says she met her English boyfriend – who is not a Muslim – during a visit to London. They struck up a relationship after he gave her his telephone number in a department store. She became pregnant the following year and worried that her elderly husband – a member of the royal family of Saudi Arabia – had become suspicious of her behaviour, she persuaded him to let her visit the UK again to give birth in secret. She feared for her life if she returned to Saudi Arabia.

She persuaded the court that if she returned to the kingdom she would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law – specifically flogging and stoning to death. She was also worried about the possibility of an honour killing. Since she fled Saudi Arabia, her family and her husband's family have broken off contact with her. >>> Robert Verkaik, Home Affairs Editor | Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Analyse: Der Iran treibt auf eine Revolution zu
WELT ONLINE: Dass sehr viele Iraner die Herrschaft der Mullahs ablehnen, haben sie auf den Straßen demonstriert. Mittlerweile zeigen sich ernsthafte Risse in der Theokratie. Im offenen Machtkampf zwischen verschiedenen Mullah-Fraktionen stecken Anzeichen einer Agonie des Systems. Der Iran treibt auf eine Revolution zu.

Von Lenin stammt die klassische Definition einer revolutionären Situation. Sie tritt ein, wenn die Beherrschten nicht mehr so wollen und die Herrschenden nicht mehr so können wie bisher. Wie es aussieht, treibt der Iran auf eine solche Situation zu.

Dass sehr viele Iraner die Herrschaft der Mullahs ablehnen, haben sie auf den Straßen bewiesen; nun zeigen sich ernsthafte Risse innerhalb der Theokratie. Beim Freitagsgebet hat Ayatollah Ali Akbar Haschemi Rafsandschani, Ex-Präsident und Kampfgefährte des Revolutionsführers Khomeini, die Legitimität des gegenwärtigen Regimes infrage gestellt. Die Regierung habe zunächst das Vertrauen in das Volk verloren, das Volk darauf das Vertrauen in die Regierung, so Rafsandschani. Er forderte die Freilassung inhaftierter Demonstranten, Freiheit der Presse und – indirekt zwar, aber deutlich – eine Revision oder Wiederholung der Präsidentenwahl. Anders sei die „Krise“, die das „System gefährdet“, nicht zu bewältigen. Das ist ein Gorbatschow-Moment. >>> Von Alan Posener | Donnerstag, 18. Juli 2009

More Non-Muslims Turning to Sharia Courts to Resolve Civil Disputes
Sheikh Suhaib Hasan. Photo: TimesOnline
TIMES ONLINE: Increasing numbers of non-Muslims are turning to Sharia courts to resolve commercial disputes and other civil matters, The Times has learnt.

The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT) said that 5 per cent of its cases involved non-Muslims who were using the courts because they were less cumbersome and more informal than the English legal system.

Freed Chedie, a spokesman for Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siqqiqi, a barrister who set up the tribunal, said: “We put weight on oral agreements, whereas the British courts do not.”

In a case last month a non-Muslim Briton took his Muslim business partner to the tribunal to sort out a dispute over the profits in their car fleet company. “The non-Muslim claimed that there had been an oral agreement between the pair,” said Mr Chedie. “The tribunal found that because of certain things the Muslim man did, that agreement had existed. The non-Muslim was awarded £48,000.”

He said that the tribunal had adjudicated on at least 20 cases involving non-Muslims so far this year. The rulings of the tribunal are legally binding, provided that both parties agree to that condition at the beginning of any hearing.

Anti-Sharia campaigners, who claim that the Islamic system is radical and biased against women, expressed alarm at the news. Denis MacEoin, who wrote a recent report for the think-tank Civitas examining the spread of Sharia in Britain, said that MAT’s claims about non-Muslim clients “raises all sorts of questions”.

He added: “You really need to ask why. What advantages could that possibly have for them going to an Islamic court? Any [Sharia] court is going to be implementing aspects of a law that runs contrary to British law, because of the way it treats women for example.” >>> Fiona Hamilton, London Correspondent | Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ahmadinejad’s Deputy Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie Forced Out by Hardliners
TIMES ONLINE: Hardliners have forced out Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s deputy, despite his being a member of the President’s family.

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie’s departure comes just four days after he was appointed. Mr Mashaie, whose daughter is married to President Ahmadinejad’s son, had outraged clerics and politicians after saying that the Islamic Republic was a “friend of the Israeli people”.

Mr Mashaie’s resignation was announced by Press TV, Iran’s state-run English-language television station. Last week another vice-president, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, who headed Iran’s nuclear programme, also resigned. Mr Mashaie also attracted conservatives’ disapproval after allegedly watching unveiled women dancing at a tourism exhibition in Turkey two years ago.

The resignation came amid reports that a British Embassy employee would be released on bail after three weeks in jail on charges of inciting unrest after last month’s disputed election.

Hossein Rassam, chief analyst at the embassy in Tehran, was the last of nine embassy staff accused of involvement in opposition rallies.

The President had shown a “twisted face to clerics and elites” by appointing Mr Mashaie, said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hardline Ahmadinejad ally. “Ahmadinejad should not challenge conservatives with such decisions. I request the President to replace him before more criticisms are made,” he said.

The President’s choice of first vice-president does not need Parliament’s approval but his new cabinet ministers will.

Mr Ahmadinejad would have struggled to get his ministerial choices past parliament. Mr Mashaie’s departure could make that task easier. >>> Michael Purcell in Iran | Sunday, July 19, 2009

Sheikh Khatib: We'll Never Give Up Al-Aqsa
YNET NEWS: Islamic Movement leader tells Arab children Israeli occupation of Jerusalem must end

Thousands of Arab children headed to Jerusalem Saturday to celebrate the annual festival of the Al-Aqsa Children's Fund initiative, which prompts Muslim youngsters to donate their allowance in favor of the mosque and Islamic Movement institutions.

The movement's Northern Branch's Deputy Chairman, Sheikh Kamel Khatib, spoke to the children and stressed that Muslims will never give up any parts of the holy Muslim site.

About 200 buses packed with children from Arab communities nationwide headed to Jerusalem since early morning hours. The children presented the cashboxes from their communities, and Islamic Movement officials estimated that a total of NIS 3 million (roughly $750,000) was raised this year. The event was attended by movement heads, sheikhs, and Arab dignitaries, including Sheikh Khatib who arrived with his four children.

'A big lie'

In his speech to the youngsters, Khatib said: "We have no partners here at the mosque," referring to Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich's recent visit to the site. "The al-Aqsa Mosque is a holy and occupied place, just like the whole of Jerusalem, which was occupied by the IDF in 1967. The occupation must be removed from the mosque in particular, and from Jerusalem in general."

"The Jews should not be thinking that they can build their Temple on the ruins of the al-Aqsa Mosque," Khatib said. "This day won't come. Those who dream that we, the Muslims, will renounce part of the al-Aqsa mosque should know that their dream will not see the light." >>> Sharon Roffe-Ofir | Saturday, July 18, 2009

Tony Blair plant seine politische Auferstehung
NZZ am Sonntag: Die britische Regierung will den früheren Premierminister Tony Blair zum EU-Präsidenten machen. Der Widerstand gegen diesen Plan ist gerade unter den britischen Bürgern gross.

Die frischgebackene britische Europa-Ministerin, Glenys Kinnock, hat vergangene Woche in Strassburg verkündet, ihre Regierung unterstütze «selbstverständlich» den früheren britischen Premierminister Tony Blair als Kandidaten für das zu schaffende Präsidium des Europäischen Ministerrates. Die eben geadelte Gattin des früheren Labour-Vorsitzenden Neil Kinnock lobte Blairs Charakterstärke und behauptete, er geniesse grossen Respekt.

Der Gedanke, Blair in dieses vorläufig weder existierende noch genau definierte Amt zu hieven, ist nicht neu. Schon im Januar 2008, als Blairs unfreiwilliger Abgang aus der Downing Street noch weniger als ein Jahr her war, portierte der französische Präsident Nicolas Sarkozy seinen Kollegen: «Er ist intelligent, er ist tapfer, und er ist ein Freund», begründete er. >>> Martin Alioth, Dublin | Sonntag, 19. Juli 2009

Tehran Tortured British Writer
THE SUNDAY TIMES: IT WAS his British passport that consigned a young writer to three days of torture. The man, who has asked to be identified only as Reza, was arrested in Tehran during an anti-government protest, beaten and threatened with death for being a “British spy”.

His broken nose and ribs have started to heal but the psychological scars remain, even though he is now safely back in London.

The 30-year-old’s story is one of the few to emerge from the prisons in which, international groups say, thousands of men and women arrested since the disputed June 12 presidential election have been held.

Reza, whose real name is being withheld to protect his family in Tehran, has lived in Britain since childhood but travelled to Iran last month for a writing project.

He voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the presidential candidate who claims that his defeat by the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged. Reza joined the hundreds of thousands who poured onto the streets to protest.

On June 20, the day after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, endorsed Ahmadinejad’s victory, Reza was leaving a demonstration when two militia men blindfolded him and bundled him onto the back of a motorcycle. >>> Marie Colvin | Sunday, July 19, 2009

Jemaah Islamiyah Behind Jakarta Suicide Bombs
TIMES ONLINE: The suicide bombers behind the deadly twin blasts at Jakarta hotels on Friday were members of the al-Qaeda-linked regional terror outfit Jemaah Islamiyah, Indonesian police said today.

Police also confirmed they had identified one of the two suicide bombers.

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has carried out dozens of bombings in Indonesia over the past decade including the 2002 attacks in Bali that left more than 200 dead, mostly foreign tourists.

"We confirm that the attackers are from Jemaah Islamiyah because there are similarities in the bombs used," Indonesia’s national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference in Jakarta earlier today.

He said an exploded bomb left in a guestroom of the JW Marriott, which was attacked along with the nearby Ritz-Carlton, resembled devices used in the Bali bombings and one discovered in a recent anti-JI raid on an Islamic boarding school.

"They are from the same school. We found similar tools, similar materials and similar methods," he said. >>> | July 19, 2009

America's White Men Are Back and Raging
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The caller introduced herself as Cathy from Massachusetts. She had a couple of modest points to make about the benefits of a national health service but Glenn Beck, one of America’s most ferocious right-wing broadcasters, was in no mood for a discussion about “socialist medicine”.

“Cathy, get off my phone,” he yelled, his voice rising several octaves. “Get off my phone, you little pinhead. Get off my phone . . . I’m losing my mind today.”

An audio clip of the exchange was duly posted online where it was heard by several million listeners, one of whom likened Beck's outraged shrieks to “a cartoon mouse being stabbed in the scrotum with knitting needles”.

Americans have long been used to airwaves filled with wild political rants. But with President Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats in control in Washington, the gates have been opened to what some are describing as a new age of conservative rage.

The angry white men, whose voices were largely silenced by the excitement and pride that greeted Obama’s election last January, are back with a vengeance. >>> Tony Allen-Mills in Washington | Sunday, July 19, 2009

Sordid Reality Behind Dubai's Gilded Facade
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Construction halted, westerners jailed for adultery - but prostitutes do well

Andrew Blair says he will pick me up from outside my sleaze-bucket of a hotel, give it 20 minutes or so, got some work to finish off. He has a job again, contracts apparently “coming out of his ears”, which is good, because until recently he had earned a certain notoriety for not having a job and, more to the point, for the manner in which he went about finding a new one. He drove around Dubai, back in January this year, from the plug-ugly creek to the plug-ugly marina, in his white Porsche, with a sign in the back window saying he wanted a job; vroom vroom he went, gizza job. Scratch scratch scratch went the keys and coins along the side of his car whenever it was parked up.

Such conspicuous flaunting of vulgar affluence seems to me entirely appropriate for this foul city — especially when combined with an admission of desperation and hopelessness, that scrawled sign and telephone number in his rear window. Fur coat and no knickers, etc. But, unaccountably, the local expats found it all a little contemptible and the journalists — none of whom possessed Ferraris — sniggered long and loud in print, out of exquisite Schadenfreude. Just look at this idiot on his uppers, was the subtext. But the ploy worked, and Andrew is once again in gainful employment as a construction project manager, and therefore can remain in this country where they deport you if you’re skint, so who’s laughing now? Not Andrew, as it happens. The whole episode, he says, made him think, made him change his ways. Those first two years out here in this dusty and scorched semi-reclaimed desert were enormous fun: huge tax-free income, palatial apartment — “the crème de la crème” — silent or monosyllabic servants, all that sex (a city containing 8,000 air hostesses can’t be bad), the fast cars, the alcohol.

But he’s a changed man, he says; that epic, shallow, soul-destroying materialism and vulgarity now leave him cold. Being out of work for a while left him a little bruised but a better person, understanding that money and consumer durables are not everything. A changed man. Although not that changed, I notice, as the white Porsche pulls up.

“Why did you leave Britain?” I ask him, slung well below sea level in the bucket seat as we cruise the baked streets past the filthy, crumbling apartment blocks where the Bangladeshi slave labourers live or die, 10 or 12 to a room, and then into the hideous bling of downtown Dubai, a vast architectural experiment conducted by, seemingly, Albert Speer and Victoria Beckham. One skyscraper appears to be gilded in gold leaf, another looks like the birthday cake of a spoilt five-year-old brat — and all of them trying desperately to be taller, flashier, more grotesque than the one next door.

“Well, you know,” he says, in a soft Scottish burr, “I think it was the immigration more than anything else.”
“But Andrew, you’re an immigrant now…” >>> Rod Liddle | Sunday, July 12, 2009

Guantanamo Row May Halt Queen’s Visit to Bermuda
Photo: The Sunday Times
THE SUNDAY TIMES: THE Foreign Office is threatening to cancel a state visit by the Queen to Bermuda after a row with the island over its “unacceptable” decision to give sanctuary to four former inmates of Guantanamo Bay.

The boycott is being considered after Bermuda infuriated David Miliband, the foreign secretary, by allowing the four men, all Chinese Muslim Uighurs, to stay on what is an overseas British territory.

The move followed a secret deal struck between Washington and the Bermudans. It was carried out without consulting Britain or the island’s governor.

Miliband protested to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, about the pact. He told her the move was “invalid” because it breached Bermuda’s constitution, under which the UK has control over the island’s foreign and security policy.

The Uighurs are Muslim separatists from Xinjiang province. They had fled to Afghanistan in 2001 to escape Chinese oppression and were detained after they went to Pakistan.

Their arrival in Bermuda last month sparked an angry response from Sir Richard Gozney, the island’s governor. He summoned Ewart Brown, the Bermudan prime minister, for a dressing down. >>> David Leppard | Sunday, July 19, 2009

Somalie : les otages français seront jugés selon la charia
LE FIGARO: Les ravisseurs des deux agents de renseignement, enlevés mardi à Mogadiscio, ont annoncé vouloir juger leurs otages, coupables «d'espionnage au profit des ennemis d'Allah», selon les principes de la loi coranique.

Les négociations sur la libération des deux agents français de renseignement de la DGSE, enlevés mardi à Mogadiscio, s'annoncent de jour en jour plus difficiles. Un haut responsable des extrémistes islamistes des shebab, qui les ont kidnappés, ont annoncé samedi vouloir les juger eux-mêmes... Selon les principes de la charia. Les captifs «aidaient le gouvernement somalien apostat et leurs espions, donc ils seront bientôt jugés et punis selon la loi coranique», a tranché ce haut responsable. «Ils feront face au tribunal pour espionnage et être entrés en Somalie pour aider les ennemis d'Allah». «La décision sur leur sort dépendra du tribunal islamique qui entendra les charges pesant contre eux», a-t-il ajouté. Son mouvement est considéré comme proche d'al-Qaida, est connu pour son application extrême de la charia : lapidation, amputation comme exécutions publiques. >>> C.J. (lefigaro.fr) avec AFP | Samedi 18 Juillet 2009

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